July 08, 2010
Switch Data
Having access to a detailed Switch Data database is essential to auditing usage invoices. The database could be used to verify volumes, PIU, CIC, DEOT and other billing errors. Invalid CIC billing is the example used in this blog.
Most audits starts with a change in the trend of the billing. This is the first problem with identifying a removed CIC. The billing trend may not change and the error in billing could continue indefinitely. The second problem is that some companies rely on manual updates to a spreadsheet or word document to track CIC changes. This is helpful, but manual updates always leave room for mistakes.
The best way to catch an error is for the CIC to be populated in a detail Switch Data database. An auditor can run various reports to trend the CIC traffic. By creating monthly reports, the auditor can identify the issue quickly, ensure that the CICs have been removed from your billing, and increase the chances of getting full credit from the vendor.
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October 13, 2009
Verizon Term Liability
During the course of auditing Verizon West/GTE invoices we found that if a circuit on a term plan has a dispute or other correction that updates via a Service Order it can reset the term clock in Verizon's system causing an over charge in term liabilty.
For example we had a circuit that had been in service for 4 years of 5 year term when it disconnected, the term fee should have been 12 months, however in Jan 09 Verizon corrected a mileage error related to a dispute on this circuit via their Service Order correction in the OCC section. When the circuit disconnected several months later and should have billed 12 months of early term fee, Verizon billed over 4 years of early term fees because their system read the last SO activity date as the dispute correction update from January 09. We disputed the overage and won the claim for $12K. When validating early term fee's with Verizon we always verify our last SO activity and make sure it matches to avoid being overcharge.
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September 01, 2009
The Benchmark Audit
Audits revolve around many different concepts; perhaps one of the most common is a rate audit. Benchmark audit is the term many use to describe whether a carrier is charging the appropriate rate. For Interstate benchmark purposes, the CLECs have to mirror the ILEC serving their areas. For Intrastate the rules and regulations change by state. There are a couple things that can be determined and organized at the beginning to save time and make the audit run smoother. When looking at a benchmark audit one of the first things to look is to see how a carrier is billing – element, or by composite. Once that is determined look at the different elements they are billing, sometimes on a bill the same elements are listed in different ways. Grouping the elements at the beginning will save time in the long run. Sometimes bills can be hard to decipher, but time can be saved by doing a little organization in the beginning before the audit begins; rate detail accuracy is of utmost importance when it comes to this type of audit.
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May 06, 2009
No Tip for Extra BIP
The majority of telecom analysts have a working knowledge of what BIP is. However, in the event that you are new to the telecom industry, here is a brief overview. BIP, which stands for Billing Interconnection Percentage, is a billing arrangement that applies when two or more LECs in the same LATA are used to complete a call or private line circuit. This charge pertains to transport rate elements, therefore many analysts verify BIP when performing channel mileage audits. It is always a good idea to verify BIP on high-mileage and high-rate circuits.
Occasionally, a carrier will not only charge the wrong BIP, but also charge another carrier’s BIP. The result: your carrier could be the one getting double-billed.
Example: Let’s say you are performing an audit on behalf of a Client. The Client completes a call/line and requires the resources of two additional carriers, Carrier A and Carrier B. Carrier A bills the Client for the correct BIP. However, Carrier B charges the Client for its respective BIP and the BIP of Carrier A. Confirm any suspicions of wrongful billing by requesting CSRs from both carriers. The CSRs will serve as proof of incorrect charges if a dispute arises. Investigate how long these charges have billed incorrectly and you might have a lucrative claim for your client.
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May 01, 2009
Recovery of Charges Over 2 Years
Are carriers seeking to recover charges for services not previously billed or collected? Revenue assurance teams are actively looking for unbilled and uncollected costs in an effort to boost revenue, cash, and profit. In several cases, we have seen carriers seek to recover money beyond the statute of limitations. If you do not already have a superseding agreement (I.e. an Interconnection Agreement with a stake agreement clause), then the carrier may only collect up to 24 months per the Communications of 1934.
Following is a link to the complete act, as well as an excerpt from section 415 which contains the statute of limitations:
http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf
Communications Act of 1934
SEC. 415. [47 U.S.C. 415] LIMITATIONS AS TO ACTIONS.(a) All actions at law by carriers for recovery of their lawful charges, or any
part thereof, shall be begun, within two years from the time the cause of action
accrues, and not after.(b) All complaints against carriers for the recovery of damages not based
on overcharges shall be filed with the Commission within two years from the time
the cause of action accrues, and not after, subject to subsection (d) of this section.(c) For recovery of overcharges action at law shall be begun or complaint
filed with the Commission against carriers within two years from the time the
cause of action accrues, and not after, subject to subsection (d) of this section,
except that if claim for the overcharge has been presented in writing to the carrier
within the two-year period of limitation said period shall be extended to include
two years from the time notice in writing is given by the carrier to the claimant of
disallowance of the claim, or any part or parts thereof, specified in the notice.(d) If on or before expiration of the period of limitation in subsection (b) or
(c) a carrier begins action under subsection (a) for recovery of lawful charges in
respect of the same service, or, without beginning action, collects charges in
respect of that service, said period of limitation shall be extended to include ninety
days from the time such action is begun or such charges are collected by the
carrier.(e) The cause of action in respect of the transmission of a message shall,
for the purposes of this section, be deemed to accrue upon delivery or tender of
delivery thereof by the carrier, and not after.(f) A petition for the enforcement of an order of the Commission for the
payment of money shall be filed in the district court or the State court within one
year from the date of the order, and not after.(g) The term ''overcharges'' as used in this section shall be deemed to mean
charges for services in excess of those applicable thereto under the schedules of
charges lawfully on file with the Commission.
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March 23, 2009
A channel termination or a cross connect charge?
This is a common discrepancy that comes up many times on facility access bills. Many auditors and vendors know that a channel termination charge is not applicable if a CFA for that location is populated on the ASR. Also, if the NCI code has a Q as the 3rd character (ex; 04QB6.33) then this would designate that a cross connect is being ordered, not a channel termination. Sometimes vendors will agree that they should have only been billing a cross connect in these cases which makes your life as an auditor very easy. Other times, however, they will quickly deny the dispute and claim they do not have expanded interconnection in that area and/or they do not have a cross connect rate in their Tariff. I came across this issue recently with Windstream Communications where they claimed they did not have the xconn rates in their Tariff. Ironically enough, the new Tariff that just came out (FCC #6) now contains these cross connect rates. This will give more leverage to anyone who needs to dispute channel termination charges for this reason. The difference in price is substantial between these two charges, so as it might take some persistence, the pay off could be very well worth it in the end.
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March 16, 2009
More than just NECA
When looking for tariffs for smaller ILECs, most people are familiar with the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA). However, this is not the only name in Carrier Association tariffs. ICORE, Inc contains interstate tariffs for various vendors throughout Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Minnesota. Likewise, John Staurulakis, Inc. has interstate tariffs for multiple vendors based mostly in the Carolinas. On the intrastate tariff side, many states have cooperatives or associations as well for the local ILECs. These include the Michigan Exchange Carrier Association, the Washington Exchange Carrier Association, the Pennsylvania Telephone Association, and the Nebraska Independent Telephone Association, to name just a few.
You can’t find individual tariffs for any of these vendors on Tariff sites like CCMI; you won’t even find any helpful concurrence pages to point you in the right direction. Having foreknowledge of these additional groups could save you a lot of time and frustration when researching independent carriers.
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March 05, 2009
Keeping Track of Your Contracts
Utilizing special contracts when purchasing circuits is a fantastic way for the buyer to save money. Often times, the contract applies to only the circuits purchased at the start of the contract, however there are a few that allow future qualifying purchases to bill under the contract as well. Keeping track of which circuit is on which contract is a key component in ensuring that the circuit is billing correctly, and is as easy as checking the CNUM FID on your CSR.
CNUM stand for Contract NUMber, and is the easiest way to look at a circuit and instantly know which contract you need to find, and where to find it. This FID is usually found when looking at CSRs from major RBOCs like the SBC companies Pac Bell, Southwestern Bell, and Ameritech. Once you've found the CNUM, you can determine the tariff you'll need. The CNUM is simply the Tariff number and subsequent sections in one string of numbers. For example, if on a Pac Bell CSR you are reviewing a circuit and see the CNUM 13321, this means the contract this circuit is billing under is located in FCC #1, Section 33.21. Likewise, if you are looking at a SNET CSR, and see CNUM 392519, you would find this contract in FCC #39, Section 25.19.
Now that you know exactly where you need to look, you can spend your time making sure the circuit is billing correctly and fits the criteria to be on this contract, rather than trying to find out which portion of the tariff you should be looking for.
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February 11, 2009
The Eternal Search for an End Office?
Have you ever walked into your office at 9AM in a very pleasant mood, said, “Hello” to your office mate, and received a disgruntled and brief, “Hi”, in return? The type of “Hi” where your friend does not move his/her eyes off the computer screen, even for a brief second, to acknowledge your existence. A greeting that actually says, “Don’t bother me right now, I can’t find what I am looking for, and I am about to erupt.” Don’t be offended, your office mate is simply trying to validate an end office location.
When auditing dedicated circuits for mileage and BIP, the end office location is essential. When auditing independent vendors, it is rare to find the end office location populated on the invoice, often times the ACTL and MUX are populated while the end office location is omitted. Additionally, even if the information is populated on the invoice, it is imperative that an auditor double check the location’s validity as this location information is coming from the very vendor under audit.
The ASR (Access Service Request) and C.O. Finder are useful tools when attempting to validate end office information. First, view the ASR and find the CILLI or NPA-NXX for the end office. Second, input the data into C.O. Finder in order to validate mileage and BIP. Sometimes this is easier said than done. In many cases CILLI codes or NPA-NXX codes are not provided for the end office. Never fear, you have not yet hit the proverbial brick wall.
In most cases the “Address Detail Section” of the ASR will provide some seemingly hidden end office location information. An auditor can combine the “SANO”, “SASN”, “SATH”, “CITY”, “STATE”, and “ZIP” fields and come up with address information such as, “738 Lee Highway, Roanoke, Va., 24019”. Next, the auditor can input this address information into CO Finder’s Location Finder application, search the address, and record the latitude and longitude assigned to the address under search. Finally, the latitude and longitude information can be plugged into CO Finder, just as a CILLI code or an NPA-NXX are under standard practice, in order to find the closest CO.
The search for an end office location might not always be easy, but it certainly is not eternal.
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February 10, 2009
Tandem Overflow from Direct End Office Trunks
Direct End Office Trunks (DEOTs) are more economical than paying for traffic to route through a tandem office. Tandem switching, tandem trunk terminations and tandem transport charges are avoided if calls are routed instead to Direct End Office trunks. The average minutes of use per month carried over a DS1 (24 channel) DEOT is about 230,000 MOU per month, with a high of around 280,000 MOU and a low of around 165,000 MOU. DS1 DEOTs are economical with as few as 110,000 MOU per month to an end office, depending on the cost of a DS1 DEOT versus tandem switching charges.
DEOTs carry more or less traffic in a month depending on whether traffic is relatively even throughout the month, or if it peaks at different times of the month. If an end office serves an optimum mixture of Business customers (use the network during the day) and Residential customers (use the network in the evenings), then the DEOT will carry more MOU per month than an office lacking Bus/Res balance.
All traffic in and out of Host – Remote clusters transports through the Host office. So, the overflow traffic could look excessive for the Host office by itself, but look reasonable when the usage for the Remote offices is added to the total.
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January 14, 2009
I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more…
When we started to audit Italian carriers, we came to the realization that some auditing tool we got used to here in the US, like CO Finder, are not available for Europe.
We needed to find a solution, and we did. Here is the link to the Distance Calculator website, that we found the most useful so far: http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/calculate-distance.html . Unfortunately it is only good for intercity distances, since you can only get the measurements from one city center to another. But it is very accurate and provides you with both – miles and kilometers.
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January 05, 2009
Be SPECific
Did you know there is a code on the ASR that is used to designate the specific product and/or service to be provisioned? Service and Product Enhancement Code (SPEC Code) is a standard code developed by Telcordia Technologies for the identification and ordering of tariffed products and services. The structure is standard across all vendors and is constructed of 5-7 alphanumeric characters. The first three characters typically represent the base product and last four characters specify the options. Vendors should have a listing of SPEC codes and their descriptions. This information can be very helpful in determining whether the rate elements on a particular circuit are applicable and billing correctly. Note: the billed SPEC code can also be found in the FID data on the CSR; however, it should be verified to ensure that it is the same as what was ordered on the ASR.
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December 16, 2008
Stay In Touch With Your PUC
Many carriers have aggregations of customers and services in certain states and metro areas. It’s a good idea to periodically check your state Public Utility Commission (PUC) website to see if there are regulatory issues pending that are relevant to you and might present a dispute opportunity. The PUC website can also provide historical rulings as well. Through one state website we were able to validate a dispute we filed for a client was indeed pending before the state Commission. Since then the Commission issued a favorable ruling for our client.
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December 09, 2008
Benefits of Outsourcing
In today's economy, many telecom carriers are looking for ways to trim costs from their network and overhead expenses. In order to focus on their core competencies, carriers in recent years have Outsourced their Telecom Cost Management (TCM) to industry experts. The identification and subsequent dispute of carrier to carrier billing errors not only reduces the monthly run-rate of network expenditures; in most cases disputes are credited retroactively up to two years. The results of a telecom cost audit can have a significant impact to a telecom carrier's income statement.
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November 20, 2008
Location, Location, Location
Vendors often mispopulate the LSOC (LOCAL SERVING OFFICE CLLI) in relation to the physical address on the invoice. This can result in incorrect mileage assessments. It can be worth it to check the physical address of the circuit location and see if the LSOC assigned to it by the vendor makes sense in relation to it. This should be especially done on high mileage circuits.
Example: Your LSOC CLLI is PTLDOR69DS0 (Portland, Oregon) and your street address at that location is 100 Lexington Avenue Tigard, Oregon.
This is a very manual stare and compare audit, but one that is worth doing from time to time.
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